Lucy and I were out walking on the farm at dusk, seeking the moon despite cloudy skies, and I was musing about work. I am a librarian to “earn my keep” in this society, and because of my IT experience pre-library-school–hardware, networks, imaging, and caring for a cadre of public and staff PCs at my local library–my career path has naturally flowed along this vein of library work despite my attempts to move into other aspects of library work.
This new year, January 2, 2020, I started a new job, with people I really respect and admire and like. I was happy and still am happy, but this week, one week after start date, was an all-day meeting for everyone on the team–we are spread out all over the state, so people don’t see one another in person very often–and all staff were to present for 5 minutes or so on their current work. I figured I would have to get up there but didn’t have anything to say yet, so I began to prepare something that was meaningful and also, slowly, then faster, spinning out of control in a maelstrom of anxiety. Couldn’t sleep one night, then two nights, and formed a headache three days ago that still hasn’t completely gone away today, a day after the event (which went just fine, even well, and my new boss totally did not expect me to get up there and speak).
So Lucy and I were walking along and I was musing about work and how to deal with this job. In most of my other jobs I’ve felt to varying degrees depleted by them and very much in need of drawing strict boundaries between home and “my time,” work and “their time.” (I once worked in the Preservation Unit at New York State Library as a student assistant for three glorious years, loved my job dearly, and even then there was a pretty clear demarcation between work and “life.”) But this job feels different. I’ve stepped into a rarified environment where creativity is not only valued but encouraged, and our common goal is lofty and righteous.
Scary. Daunting. And so the shadow self comes up and starts heaving me around, showing me all the shit I still haven’t cleaned up, all the things I’ve left undone and how are you ever going to do anything? Dicing my already distracted mind into a fine mess, which, given reign, pulls me into a death spiral. I spent most of this week indulging like a sonofabitch, as don Juan Matus would say to Carlos often in those books. It’s not like I can help it, once I get going, but still…I see it happening and let it go off the rails at some level.
Walking on the farm under the hidden moon, I realized that the approach I’ve taken to work until now will not work anymore. Instead of boundaries I need to integrate. Instead of compartmentalizing my life into work and life I need to find a way to fit work into my life, allow it to permeate my life, allow it to wake me in the middle of the night with great ideas I need to write down before I can possibly sleep again. Embrace work as part of my life, not separate from it.
When I came home, I found this article waiting for me in the “Pocket” offerings every new tab on Google presents. It is a very good article and confirms me in my musings in a way only the Universe can, as it riffs off of and echoes my own inner landscape. Happy New Year.
The Way You Think About Willpower Is Hurting You
